
Charting the Landscape, Mapping New Paths: 

Museums, Libraries, and K-12 Learning August 2004 








































































INSTITUTE OF MUSEUM AND LIBRARY SERVICES 

1800 M Street NW, 9th Floor 
Washington, DC 20036 

202-653-IMLS (4657) 
www.imls.gov 

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IMLS will provide visually impaired or learning-disabled individuals with an audio 
recording of this publication upon request. 


Printed April 2005 

Produced by Marsha L. Semmel, 

Director Office of Strategic Partnerships 

Writer: Neil Carlson 

Conference Facilitator: Lou Wetherbee 

Editorial and Publication Assistance: 

Mamie Bittner, Director of Public and Legislative Affairs 

Designed by Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, Washington, DC 
www.ogilvypr.com 

Photo Credit (Cover): 

Left: A girl conducts a roller coaster experiment in the California Science 

Center School’s Big Lab. Photograph courtesy of the California Science 
Center School. 

Center: Photo by Noel Hendrickson. Getty Images. 

Right: Photo by Megumi Takamura. Getty Images. 

Printed in the United States of America 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 

Information not available at time of publication 



















ABOUT IMLS 


AND K - 1 2 
LEARNING 


The Institute of Museum and Library Services is 
dedicated to creating and sustaining a Nation of 
Learners by helping libraries and museums serve 
their communities. Many IMLS funding programs 
support the goals of strengthening effective 
partnerships among museums, libraries, and 
K-12 teaching and learning. 

For more information about these and other IMLS 
programs and activities, visit www.imls.gov. 

IMLS funding programs with particular relevance 
to museums, libraries, and K-12 include-. 

Grants to States. Through the Library Services and 
Technology Act (LSTA), a section of the Museum 
and Library Services Act of 2003, IMLS provides 
funds to State Library Administrative Agencies 
using a population-based formula. State libraries 
may use the appropriation to support statewide 
initiatives and services; they may also distribute 
funds through subgrant competitions or cooperative 
agreements to public, academic, research, school, 
and special libraries in their state. 

National Leadership Grants encourage leadership 
in the education of lifelong learners in the 21st 
century, the innovative use of new technologies, 
model projects that can be replicated throughout 
the field, and an extended impact of federal 
dollars through collaborative projects. Grants 
are made to museums, libraries, and other 
organizations in three categories: Advancing 
Learning Communities, Building Digital Resources, 
and Research and Demonstration. 


Partnership for a Nation of Learners Community 
Collaboration Grants support museum/library/public 
broadcasting collaborations that address community 
civic and educational needs. 


Museums for America Grants provide support 
to museums for their work in sustaining cultural 
heritage, supporting lifelong learning, and serving 
as centers of community engagement. 


21st Century Museum Professionals Grants support 
a range of professional development activities for 
museum professionals. 

Librarians for the 21st Century Grants support efforts to 
recruit and educate the next generation of librarians 
and the faculty who will prepare them for careers 
in library science. They also support research, 
curriculum development, and continuing education. 

Native American Museum and Library Services Grants 

support the development and enhancement of 
programs and services in libraries and museums 
that serve Native American and Native Hawaiian 
communities. 



Museum Assessment Program (MAP) provides 
noncompetitive grants to museums for technical 
assistance in four areas (1) institutional, (2) 
collections management, (3) public dimension, 
and (4) governance. It is administered by the 
American Association of Museums. 



















TABLE OF 


CONTENTS 



01 

03 

05 

08 

10 

12 


Preface 

Summary of Critical Findings 


Surveying the Landscape: Towards a Learning Society 
lefining the Vision: Placing Learners at the Center 
Facing Three Challenges 


Filling the Gaps: Tools and Strategies 


15 


25 


Embracing Innovation: Examples of Partnership, Collaboration, 
and Learning 

Hybrid Institutions: The Museum School 
Capacity-Building Partnerships 
Discipline-Based Partnerships 
Community and Technology 

Appendix 

Glossary 

Participant Roster 



Selected Resources 
























































































































PREFACE 


Robert S. Martin, Director, Institute of Museum and Library Services 


The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is an 
independent federal agency that serves as the primary source of 
federal grants for the nation’s libraries and museums. Our grants to 
museums and libraries build institutional capacity, support core 
library and museum services, encourage excellence, promote 
innovation, and foster collaboration between and among museums 
and libraries. Through our grant programs and convening authority, 
IMLS provides leadership for the library and museum fields. 

Our agency’s mission is to create and sustain a Nation of Learners 
by helping museums and libraries serve their communities. But just 
what do we mean by that phrase—a Nation of Learners? In the 21st 
century, the future of our democracy and the strength of our economy 
depend on each individual’s ability to think critically, learn new skills, 
and adapt to a rapidly changing culture and economy. In short, 
citizens must have the ability to learn throughout their lifetimes. 

At IMLS, we believe that this responsibility for lifelong learning, for 
creating and sustaining a learning society, cuts across social, cultural, 
political, and institutional boundaries. As a government agency, 
this principle is at the heart of our public mandate. Our 2003 
reauthorization charges the agency to “encourage and support 
museums [and libraries] in carrying out their educational role as core 
providers of learning in conjunction with schools, families, and 
communities.” Fulfilling that charge is what we mean by creating 
a Nation of Learners. 

Learning and education have always been central to IMLS. In the 
1990s, the Institute of Museum Services (the precursor to IMLS) 
launched a series of initiatives to strengthen museum partnerships 
with schools, held a national conference, and published a case study 
workbook, True Needs, True Partners. In 1996, and again in 2002, 
the agency conducted two national surveys that charted the meteoric 
rise of museum investments in K-12 learning. Most museums 
reported that the number of students, teachers, and schools they 


served had increased steadily since 1991. Museums offered schools 
a range of activities, including on-site visits; pre- and post-visit 
services to students and teachers; resource kits and traveling exhibits; 
web-based experiences and curricula; and in-service teacher training. 
According to the 2002 survey, museums of all types and sizes 
together invested more than $1 billion, and millions of instructional 
hours, in K-12 educational programs from 2000-2001. 

In June 2002, IMLS worked with Laura Bush and the Office of the 
First Lady to convene and publish the proceedings from the first- 
ever White House Conference on School Libraries, a landmark event 
that brought together leaders from the fields of education, library 
services, government, and philanthropy to highlight the importance 
of school libraries in children’s education. At this conference, 
attendees heard from government and foundation leaders, 
researchers, and librarians about a variety of studies that 
demonstrated the power of the library (including school, public, 
and academic libraries) in students’ learning. Libraries encourage 
reading and literacy; they provide venues for studying homework 
(often with trained volunteers who serve as homework mentors); 
and they provide computer access to online educational resources. 
The distinguished speakers agreed that libraries—in classrooms, 
schools, and communities—are vital for children’s achievement and 
developing informational needs. In many states and in urban and 
rural settings, study after study has documented how well-supported 
school libraries improve academic achievement. 

IMLS is the primary federal agency for funding and distribution of 
information about library and museum services. With its mandate to 
provide leadership and support to the library and museum fields and 
its focus on the educational missions of museums and libraries, the 
agency possesses a unique vantage point for bridging the museum 
and library communities and convening them—with other 
stakeholders—around common areas of interest. 


1 


















To that end, on August 30-31, 2004, the Institute of Museum and 
Library Services hosted "Charting the Landscape/Mapping New Paths: 
Museums, Libraries, and K-12 Education,” a conference examining 
the intersections of museums, libraries, and K-12 education. More 
than seventy educators, researchers, policymakers, and museum 
and library professionals participated in the workshop—leaders 
representing a diversity of professions who nevertheless share a 
commitment to learning and innovation. Though many of them have 
been involved in pioneering efforts within their respective fields, they 
had not yet had the chance to come together to think and learn from 
each other. This was their opportunity to initiate a longer, more 
in-depth conversation about the collaborative role of museums, 
libraries, and K-12 education in America—and to discuss how those 
relationships might be strengthened and multiplied. 

OUR ULTIMATE GOALS ARE TWOFOLD: 

• To CULTIVATE a “community of practice” in which representatives 
from libraries, museums, K-12, and other organizations could 
continue to define new programs and networks that create more 
effective in- and out-of-school K-12 learning experiences; share 
research and evidence across sectors; and support new research 
and practice in order to foster more effective student learning; and 

• To STRENGTHEN the presence of libraries and museums at the 
policy-making “tables” when K-12 educational priorities and 
policies are considered at the national, state, and local levels. 

The purpose of this report is to capture key issues that emerged at 
the workshop and to provide some common language around a vision 
for how museum/school/library partnerships can contribute to a 
learning society. Workshop participants represented the leading edge 
of this evolving dynamic, and examples of their seminal projects and 
partnerships accompany this report. The main body of the report 
synthesizes the substance of the conversations, discussions, and 
visions that emerged from the two-day workshop. “We have an 


opportunity to capitalize on the value of work already being done,” 
said one participant. With a clear set of models and best practices, 
education policymakers can focus on using funds more effectively, 
creating "a structure of learning that includes more real world 
inquiries and problem-solving.” But more important, the report speaks 
to the broader desire to inject new life into the debate around the 
future of education and learning in America. As one participant put it, 
“We have an opportunity to create synergy and leverage resources to 
improve learning by re-envisioning education and lifelong learning." 

Using facilitator Lou Wetherbee’s free-flowing, self-directed approach, 
participants created eight discussion groups around what they dubbed 
“The Major Themes." These were the issues they believed 
stakeholders must address as they strive to articulate common 
language, frameworks, public policies, and areas for action that would 
support and advance successful and sustainable museum, library, 
and K-12 education partnerships. In identifying problem areas and 
challenges, articulating what the variety of stakeholders required for 
success, and suggesting next steps, this report should not obscure the 
simple truth that we are all responsible for creating and sustaining a 
learning society. We believe that school/museum/library partnerships 
will become an indispensable feature of that landscape. 


2 











The Major Themes 


Workshop participants selected the following issues as priorities for mapping 
new paths in museum/library/K-12 partnerships: 


Putting 


learners' needs first. 


Balancing 


our institutions' missions, core competencies, and responsibilities 
with the creation of new collaborative learning programs. 



our current knowledge and accomplishments in school, 
museum, and library collaborations. 

parents and caregivers in advancing children's learning. 

innovation and pushing the envelope. 

effective use of digitized resources in the classroom. 

research and evaluation. 

and educators, policymakers, and the 

education policy development process. 




SUMMARY OF 
CRITICAL FINDINGS 


Participants from the “Charting the 
Landscape/Mapping New Paths” 
conference identified the following 
practical actionable steps that 
practitioners, policymakers, museum and 
library professionals, and educators should 
take to support the development of a 
learning society, with museum, library, 
and school partnerships as a central 
element of that society. 

Use the bully pulpit to spread the 
idea of learning communities and 
the role of museums and libraries 

• Publish a “call to action” that lays out 
the idea of the learning society. 

• Reach out to the national formal 
education community. 

• Involve boards of directors in engaging 
other community leaders. 

Build a community of practice 

• Create a clearinghouse for literature, 
best practices, and research. 

• Develop opportunities and tools for 
convening stakeholders and building 
the network. 

• Fund innovative partnerships and 
disseminate case studies of what 
worked and what did not. 












Build better relationships with 

education policymakers and other 
education stakeholders 

• Create formal partnerships at the federal, 
state, and local levels with federal and 
state education policymakers. 

• Work with education associations, parent 
organizations, and communities towards 
a common education policy agenda. 

Support increased research and 

evaluation efforts 

• Examine the impact of museum and 
library experiences and programs on 
K-12 learning. 

• Link research on informal learning 
to other evidence-based research in 
formal education. 

• Study how new interactive technologies 
can positively affect learning. 

• Investigate ways to improve access 
to, and effective use of, digitized 
educational resources. 

• Evaluate programs across time and 
venue to obtain more longitudinal and 
systemic data. 


Encourage training and 

professional development 

• Create a “curriculum for convergence” 
for practitioners in museums, libraries, 
and schools that focuses on the 
skills and approaches required for 
successful collaboration. 

• Emphasize the new landscape of learning 
communities in leadership development. 

• Train practitioners to leverage the 
educational benefits of new technologies. 


Speak out, share 
practices, build 
relationships in the 
educational community, 
support increased 
research and evaluation, 
and encourage training 
and development. 



A Center for informal Learning and Schools practitioner 

investigates science exhibits at the Exploratorium. 

(Exploratorium) 


4 






SURVEYING THE LANDSCAPE: 
TOWARDS A LEARNING SOCIETY 


The “Charting the Landscape/Mapping 
New Paths” workshop comprised leaders 
from museums, libraries, formal education, 
research and evaluation, related 
government agencies, foundations, and 
other organizations, who came together 
to discuss the role of K-12 education as 
a foundation for lifelong learning and full 
participation in family, community, work, 
and society. These thought leaders were 
creators, stewards, and managers of 
cutting-edge partnerships between schools, 
libraries, and museums. They represented 
myriad enterprises related to learning, 
each with a small piece of the big picture 
puzzle: how school/ museum/library 
partnerships could support and enrich 
a learning society. They were eager to 


Economic globalization and the 
emergence of an information economy 
have made it more important than ever 
that Americans have the skills and the 
opportunities to learn and develop 
throughout their lifetimes. 


discover how the pieces fit together and 
to see what the final picture would look 
like. Would they find that they were 
continuing historical practices and 
approaches or embarking on a significantly 
new way of operating? Could they form, 
among themselves, a new learning 
community, a different kind of national 
coalition with possibilities for growth and 
expansion? As one attendee later remarked, 
“I’m not sure if I’m a lone star or part of 
a constellation.” 

IMLS Director for Strategic Partnerships 
Marsha Semmel introduced IMLS Director 
Robert S. Martin, whose opening address 
outlined the social, political, and economic 
forces shaping museum, school, and library 
partnerships. “We often hear it said today 
that we are living in an information age,” 
he began. “But in a world that is drowning 
in information, we are hungry for 
knowledge.” Economic globalization and 
the emergence of an information economy 
have made it more important than ever 
that Americans have the skills and the 
opportunities to learn and develop 
throughout their lifetimes. It is therefore 
not enough to be an information society. 
“We must become a learning society, and 
that is why at the Institute of Museum and 
Library Services we are dedicated to the 
purpose of creating and sustaining a nation 


of learners. In a learning society, museums 
and libraries are fundamental components 
of the educational infrastructure. As such, 
as our authorizing legislation states, they 
have a mandate and responsibility to 
provide resources and services that 
stimulate and support learning throughout 
the lifetime, including the K-12 years.” 

The needs of a learning society and the 
challenges of sustaining a Nation of 
Learners compel museums and libraries 
to re-imagine their roles in society. 
“Changes in the environment in which our 
institutions operate—in the technological 
infrastructure through which we deliver 
services, in the galleries and programmatic 
spaces we create, in the economic 
substrate that finances operations, 
and i-n the social landscape that defines 
the communities we serve—dictate 
corresponding changes in the way libraries 
and museums structure and deliver 
services. Our emerging understanding of 
the nature of learning and the way learning 
interacts with other aspects of our 
environment is likely to result in an even 
more rapid change in the coming decade.” 

Just as librarians and museum 
professionals have been seeking new ways 
to cope with these changes, K-12 teachers 
and administrators have been working to 


5 













accommodate equally profound changes 
in education. “The structures we have in 
place today for providing public education 
evolved in the nineteenth century in 
response to specific environmental 
conditions and social needs," Martin said. 
“Today, we are witnessing conspicuous 
challenges to the basic assumptions of 
schooling. The dramatic rise of home 
schooling in the past decade is but one 
example.” Martin pointed to a heightened 
examination of traditional and new roles for 
family, home, workplace, and community— 
in addition to schools—in learning. “We 
are here today and tomorrow to examine 
how. in this new learning ecosystem, 
museums, libraries and K-12 can be 
more effective partners." 

Martin dared the participants to think 
deeply about the unique challenges schools 
currently face. Citing The Road to 21st 
Century Learning, published by the 
Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 
a public/private collaboration of leading 
businesses, education, and government 
groups, he noted a growing sense of 
urgency about the future of America that 
is based on the recognition that the nation 
needs a well-educated, engaged populace 
to achieve national security and economic 
prosperity. There is a “broad consensus 
that there must be significant improvement 


in the schools.” In addition to core 
subjects of English, reading, math, 
science, foreign languages, civics, 
government, economics, art, history, 
and geography, the Partnership has 
identified new core skills: information 
and communication skills, thinking and 
problem solving skills, interpersonal and 
self-directional skills. According to the 
report, twenty-first century tools include 
information and communication 
technologies, and twenty-first century 
context refers to the power of learning 
academic content through real world 
examples, applications and experiences, 
both inside and outside of schools. These 
are areas where museums and libraries 
have important expertise to offer. “In the 
twenty-first century environment of rapid 
change, the schools alone are not enough 
to foster the ability to learn throughout 
the lifetime,” he said. “We need to 
embrace a bold new vision of learning. 

We need to think beyond our institutional 
boxes. Libraries, museums, and schools 
are all important elements in this web 
of learning.” 

Martin urged workshop participants to 
think more broadly about the impact of 
evolving technologies on our understanding 
of learning and community. The Internet 
has transformed the way people acquire 


CORE SUBJECTS 

NEW CORE SKILLS 

English, reading 


or language arts 

Information 

Mathematics 

and 

Communication 

Science 

Skills 

Civics 

Thinking and 

Government 

Problem Solving 

Skills 

Economics 

Arts 

Interpersonal 

and 

History 

Self-directional 

Skills 

Geography 


In the twenty-first century environment 
of rapid change , the schools alone are 
not enough to foster the ability to learn 
throughout the lifetime. 


6 














information, products, and services. 
Members of the public aren’t concerned 
about how museums and libraries define 
themselves as institutions, he said. They 
just want access to the content inside. 
“There is now a new premium on customer 
satisfaction and self-sufficiency that will 
transform the structure and delivery of 
library and museum services.” 

Arguably more important, however, is the 
way in which technology is blurring the 
institutional and professional boundaries 
that once separated museums, schools, 
and libraries. Learning, work, and leisure 
time are fusing into a seamless world. 

“We must build a fabric of social agencies 
that facilitates continuous lifelong 
learning among learners of all ages and 
circumstances. This fabric should weave 
together all institutions with stewardship 
for the production and dissemination of 
knowledge—including schools, libraries, 
and museums—into a ‘seamless learning 
infrastructure.”’ This infrastructure can 
be virtual, thanks to new technologically 
based ways of capturing and accessing 
educational content and enabling 
interactive learning processes. But it is 
also physical and actual, as the assets 
of libraries and museums as venues for 
learning during and after school—including 
architecture, space allocation, and hours of 
operation—are re-imagined and re-thought 
in many new ways. 



As Martin spoke, the mood in the room 
began to shift. Workshop organizers had 
anticipated that participants would want 
to discuss the resources and assets that 
museums and libraries bring to the table 
in K-12 partnerships, but participants 
were galvanized by the larger issue 
of learning what Martin was outlining. 

The responsibility for learning is not and 
should not be the exclusive preserve of 
formal educational institutions. It is a 
community-wide responsibility. Lifelong 
learning should be a continuum, 
with formal and non-formal learning 
opportunities complementing one another. 
Learning does not start at the school room 
door, and neither should it stop there. 

“This conference provides an opportunity 
for us to consider ways in which we can 
further a seamless infrastructure for K-12 
teaching and learning. The time to do 
this is now.” 


SURVEYING THE LANDSCAPE: 
TOWARDS A LEARNING SOCIETY 

In the 21st century, 
a competitive successful 
society requires people 
who never stop learning. 
Therefore, K-12 education 
must move beyond the 
traditional curriculum 
to embrace technology, 
communication, problem 
solving and interpersonal 
skills and much more. 

By building the 
foundation in K-12, we 
can set the groundwork 
for lifetime acquisition 
of knowledge. 







DEFINING THE VISION: PLACING 
LEARNERS ATTHE CENTER 


Learning Communities 

Creating a vision of museum/school/library 
partnerships in a learning society begins 
with imagining what is possible. What do 
we mean by a learning community? Who 
are the community’s members? How 
do we define a successful learning 
community? Workshop discussion built 
on Martin's remarks, with participants 
contributing their own views, contending 
that a learning community is one that 
believes that learning happens anywhere 
and everywhere, that it is personal and 
individualized, and that it draws on all 
the community’s resources. At a minimum, 
a learning society develops, values, 
and supports citizens as learners, and 
recognizes that all learning institutions— 
families, schools, libraries, museums, 
public service media, arts and cultural 
organizations, community organizations, 
civic and faith-based groups—contribute 
to its strength. 

Community as Campus 

As participants considered the role of 
museum/school/library partnerships in 
a learning society, they envisioned a 
model that placed individual learners 
at the center (Figure 1.) 

In this vision, museums, libraries, and 
schools are core hubs of the learning society. 



Figure 1:A New Model for Learning. 


Throughout the conference, there was 
example after example of innovation and 
possibility: the Transitions Academy, 
a pilot program run by Port Discovery, 
the Baltimore Children's Museum, for 
underachieving ninth graders in the 
Baltimore school system; the Austin 
Independent School District's efforts to 
disseminate museum curricula guides 
to school libraries; the Chicago Public 
Schools/University of Chicago Internet 
Project, a partnership between the 
university and educators in twenty-six 
public schools to improve everyday 
teaching and learning via information 
technologies. Museums and libraries have 
strong, complementary, and rich resources 
for learning—collections, opportunities 
for authentic experiences, scholarship, 
expertise, safe and trusted settings, 
multiple learning pathways, and a variety 
of subject-based and skills-based learning 


opportunities. And while the success 
stories are out there, there are significant 
challenges, too. Libraries, museums, 
and schools have different organizational 
cultures, understandings of core 
competencies, and business models, 
and achieving the needed scale will require 
institutions and policymakers to not only 
build on existing successes, but rethink 
some basic assumptions about mission, 
audience, resource allocation, and 
community. “The museums I represent 


CASE STUDY 


In the Birmingham Learning Initiative, an emerging community 
development partnership in Alabama, the Birmingham Cultural 
Alliance, an association of the city's cultural institutions, has 
partnered with the public schools to create a cross-generational 
*Downtown Learning Zone." Otis Dismuke, director of community 
education for the Birmingham City Public Schools, hailed the 
Learning Zone as one of the *premier after-school programs' in 
the Birmingham City Public Schools. "The whole city is a learning 
center for the students, and that's a wonderful experience,’ he said. 
There is great power in increased collaboration between and 
among museums, libraries, and K-12 educational institutions; and 
as the work of conference participants illustrated, this is a space 
rich with innovation. 


















are struggling with redefining their 
operational model in these changing 
times,” said Bonnie VanDorn, executive 
director of the Association of Science- 
Technology Centers, an international not- 
for-profit organization representing more 
than 540 science centers and museums 
in forty countries. “New insights about 
how to address our educational mission 
are needed to serve the learning needs 
of our communities." 

Delivering Value to the Public 

In an era where there are multiple 
legitimate and justifiable demands on 
resources, policymakers and the public 
are raising the bar on non-profits and 
public institutions, requiring that they 
adhere to high levels of fiscal and ethical 
accountability, operate effectively and 
efficiently, and fulfill missions that are 
relevant to people’s lives. In this context, 
collaboration may enable schools, 
museums, and libraries to strengthen their 
public standing, improve their services and 
programs, and better meet the needs of 
larger and more diverse cross-sections of 
learners, especially underserved learners 
in urban and rural areas. Consider the 
Henry Ford Academy and the Kentucky 
Department for Libraries and Archives’ 
School and Public Library Partnership 
Programs, two examples of partnerships 
that have significantly broadened and 



deepened the roles museums and libraries 
play in relation to public education. 

“I believe strongly in the notion of 
collaboration, and in the importance of 
buttressing the besieged public education 
system,” argued Sonnet Takahisa, 
a consultant for Arts and Cultural 
Partnerships at New Visions for Public 
Schools, an education reform organization 
dedicated to improving the quality of 
education children receive in New York 
City's public schools. Before joining New 
Visions, Takahisa founded the New York 
City Museum School. "I saw the power of 
museums for schools and schools for 
museums.” Likewise, as Director of 
Education for the Birmingham Civil Rights 
Institute, Ahmad Ward has seen the value 
that public programming, teacher 
workshops and training sessions have 
brought to both his institution and the 
public it serves. In addition to the 
Institute’s role in the Learning Zone, it has 
ongoing relationships with teachers and 
students through its regular education and 
outreach programs. “Collaborating with 
schools and libraries has opened our doors 
to a brand new audience and helped to 
broaden our horizons as well,” he said. 


DEFINING THE VISION: PLACING 
LEARNERS AT THE CENTER 

Museums, libraries and 
schools play concentric 
roles in modern 
education, with the 
learner at the point of 
intersection between the 
three institutions. In a 
time of limited financial 
resources, however, 
institutions’ public value 
will be judged not only 
by programmatic 
effectiveness, but by the 
ability to meet stringent 
standards of fiscal and 
ethical accountability. 











FACING THREE CHALLENGES 


Re-defining Education and Learning 
Over a Lifetime 

Practitioners within the museum, library, 
and K-12 worlds are adopting a vision 
of education that encompasses learning 
beyond school walls. Although public 
discourse on education tends to focus on 
the “three R’s,” it is imperative that this 
conversation includes not only the core 
content disciplines but also that it 
embraces a broader view of education 
and learning. “If we don’t," said Wendy 
Blackwell, Port Discovery’s director of 
education, “we will miss the opportunity 
to cross-polIinate education and inject 
new life into communities of learners.” 
Increasingly, scholars, researchers, 
teachers, members of the business 
community, and policymakers are 
recognizing the significance of learning 
in so-called “informal” sectors, like 
libraries and museums, as well as the 
effectiveness of learning and teaching 
strategies that are participatory, interactive, 
and practical. The Business Higher 
Education Forum has identified such skills 
and attributes as “leadership, teamwork, 
problem solving, self-management, 
analytical thinking, adaptability, time 
management, basic communications, and 
global consciousness” as necessary for 
a Nation of Learners. Through exhibits, 
hands-on activities, simulations, self- 
directed learning opportunities, and 


apprenticeship and mentoring programs, 
libraries and museums have demonstrated 
expertise in these increasingly relevant 
teaching and learning strategies, which can 
serve teachers and students alike. These 
techniques also have currency before and 
beyond the school years, supporting 
people's lifelong learning and information 
gathering needs as citizens, family 
members, and workers. 

Re-positioning Professional Roles 

It is one thing to talk in the abstract about 
the convergence of learning institutions; 
it is quite another to realize that vision. 

As museums and libraries realign their 
purviews and re-imagine their work to 
support the needs of the learning society, 
the roles of people within those institutions 
will inevitably change, as will the 
organizations' cultures and workflows. 

And for many people change is difficult, 
particularly when it comes to professional 
identity. Toward the close of the workshop, 
despite the emphasis on collaboration and 
convergence, participants had yet to tackle 
the impact of these changes on 
professional roles, identity, and training. 

“I am a librarian. You are a museum 
professional. You are a high school 
administrator,” Robert Martin commented, 
noting the inherent difficulty of forging 
new professional roles. “Your identity is 
as an elementary school librarian or as 


a university professor. These are potential 
impediments, I think, for us to find ways 
to realize this rather impressive agenda 
of things we need to do to move forward 
to make this new vision of learning work.” 
Institutions need connectors and networks 
to help drive the conceptual and 
operational changes needed for successful 
convergence. A participant observed, “It’s 
really a pipeline issue, [a question of] how 
we can prepare the kinds of community 
educators we need.” 


As museums and libraries realign their 
purviews and re-imagine their work 
to support the needs of the learning 
society, the roles of people within those 
institutions will inevitably change. 


10 



















FACING THREE CHALLENGES 


Increasing Research 
and Evaluation Activities 

Research conducted over the past decade 
within the museum and library fields has 
strengthened our understanding of the 
roles museums and libraries play in 
supporting learning. School libraries, 
studies have found, are a critical factor in 
student academic achievement. Likewise, 
museums play an instrumental role in 
reinforcing the multi-dimensional, iterative, 
and experiential dimensions of learning. 
Little research, however, addresses 
museum and library learning over time or 
across environments, including the 
complex learning interactions created by 
partnerships among museums, libraries, 
and schools. Anecdotal evidence from 
students, teachers, and museum/library 
professionals suggests that collaborations 
are positive, but the lack of formal 


What best prepares students , ages five 
to eighteen, to participate fully in 
society and in the workforce? How do 
they become effective lifelong learners? 


evidence needs to be addressed. Priority 
research and evaluation questions focus on 
the ways in which learning environments 
(“formal” and “informal”) support effective 
learning. This scope of inquiry requires 
continued research into the complexities of 
learning itself, as well as an understanding 
of learning in different settings and within 
and among different social groups. What 
best prepares students, ages five to 
eighteen, to participate fully in society 
and in the workforce? How do they become 
effective lifelong learners? How can 
museums and libraries best support and 
complement schooling to achieve these 
goals? If we can agree on the essential 
capacities K-12 education should build, 
what evidence can credibly demonstrate 
age- and stage-appropriate progress? How 
can we engage and organize our full 
educational infrastructure—including and 
beyond museums, libraries, and schools— 
to produce those outcomes? Once we 
understand more about what works, how 
can we communicate successes so that 
education policy provides the resources to 
extend and expand our successes? Finally, 
how can research results move effectively 
into practice? 


Three key challenges are: 
successfully redefining 
education as a lifetime 
endeavor; understanding 
the changing nature 
of professional roles; 
and moving beyond 
anecdotal evidence 
to show what works. 



n 













FILLING THE GAPS: 
TOOLS AND STRATEGIES 


Leveraging Current Knowledge and 
Creating the Community of Practice 

Workshop participants shared many 
examples of their own collaborative 
learning and teaching projects and 
practices. These projects reflect the 
blurring of institutional boundaries, new 
approaches to professional development, 
partnerships to meet state and national 
educational standards, and applications 
of digital technologies. (The examples 
throughout this report describe some of 
these efforts.) “Unless we leverage our 
current knowledge, we will miss out on an 
opportunity to recognize the value of work 
already being done, to use funds more 
effectively rather than reinventing the 
wheel,” said Sylvia Norton, coordinator 
for school library programs for the Maine 
Department of Education and the Maine 
State Library. “We have the opportunity 
to nudge a structure of learning to create 
more real world inquiries and problem¬ 
solving.” This is fundamentally an issue 
of knowledge-building. Potential leaders 
and innovators need to be identified and 
supported. Successful collaborations and 
their results need to be documented and 
disseminated through best practice case 
studies. Workshop attendees emphasized 
that the case studies should describe and 
dissect partnerships, successful and failed, 
examining their programmatic, financial, 
and human costs and benefits. Case 
studies should also examine key indicators 


for success and potential for replicability. 

In addition, on a national and local level, 
organizations must find or create 
opportunities to come together physically 
and virtually to identify community learning 
needs and to explore how their respective 
resources can effectively address those 
needs at a broad systemic level or in 
specific locales. Without a “third place” 
that helps to foster and sustain a network 
through which to share ideas and spur 
innovation, noted Adrian K. Haugabrook, 
Executive Director of Citizen Schools 
University in Boston, Massachusetts, 

“I suspect there would continue to be 
duplication of innovation, few opportunities 
to demonstrate and evaluate potential 
exemplary models, and fewer opportunities 
to capitalize on the assets of learning 
communities.” Professional networking 
opportunities would support the cross¬ 
fertilization necessary for widespread 
collaboration. “We need to establish 
networks across professional organizations 
and associations at both the national and 
grassroots levels,” urged one participant. 

Practicing Partnership 

Workshop participants believed that 
identifying and mastering the salient 
characteristics of successful collaborations 
would play an essential role in enabling 
museums, libraries and schools to make a 
positive and sustained difference in K-12 
education. Strong collaborations are 




characterized by committed institutions 
with results-focused leaders and clear 
definitions of roles, both within and 
among partner organizations. Leaders of 
successful collaborations also take the time 
to get to know their partner organizations’ 
strengths, weaknesses, limitations, and 
core competencies. “You must get to know 
the strengths and operating standards and 
day-to-day procedures of each 
organization,” said Benjamin Lorch, 
Managing Director of The Chicago Public 
Schools/University of Chicago Internet 
Project. “From there, you can develop your 
goals—understanding, for example, that 
each organization has different deadlines 
and fiscal timelines and priorities 
throughout the year, that certain times 
are going to be better than others for doing 
work. This all rolls up into learning each 
other's culture." Strong collaborations 
also share risks and rewards while striving 
towards common goals. 


12 












Creating a Climate of Innovation 

Innovation takes many forms— 
organizational, operational, strategic, 
technological—each of which is equally 
important to the vision of a learning 
society. In many cases, different types of 
innovation overlap with and support one 
another. Hybrid institutions like museum 
schools, for example, embrace new 
operational and organizational models, 
while library-based teacher resource 
centers put a new spin on the strategic role 
school librarians play. Digital technologies, 



too, are an important tool for spurring 
innovation and collaboration. In the 
coming years, the convergence of wireless 
technologies, Internet, telephony, television 
and film, and text will create new 
possibilities for collaborating across 
institutional boundaries and for creating 
new generations of inter-linked, accessible, 
and robust digital resources for teaching 
and learning. As more classrooms are wired 
for the Internet, teachers (often with the 
assistance of the school library media 
specialist) are becoming more proficient 
in integrating web-based materials in their 
instruction. Internet-based teaching 
materials and digital collections are already 
a reality. A National Science Digital Library 
is in the making, and workshop 
participants offered suggestions for a 
National Cultural Heritage Digital Library. 
They noted that as institutions develop 
shared standards and protocols for 
digitized materials, it will be easier to 
share resources and work together. The 
challenge, said R. David Lankes, Executive 
Director of the Information Institute of 
Syracuse, is to create digital objects in the 
fields of cultural heritage, history, and the 
arts that are important to the public. “We 
need to be building and integrating this 
constant cultural heritage into a digital 
form that is accessible to the library, 
museum, and K-12 learning community. 

It needs to be very concrete.” 


Involving All Stakeholders 

“Public education, now seen as the chief 
responsibility of schools, will continue 
to falter and will lose students and 
community support unless we take a more 
active role in redefining education,” said 
Mary Ellen Munley, experienced museum 
educator and principal of a Chicago-based 
firm dedicated to enhancing the role 
of museums in the lives of people and 
communities. “Relevance and success of 
public education requires the convergence 
of community resources.” Schools, 
museums, and libraries need to partner 
with other community institutions (social 
service agencies, daycare providers, parks 
and recreation boards, community-based 
organizations) to better leverage the full 
range of community learning networks. 

How can institutions work collectively 
to pay special attention to underserved 
children? How can they use their 
collaborative resources to close the K-12 
achievement gap that exists in many 
communities? How can they collaboratively 
address the needs of rural as well as urban 
populations? Participants saw a priority in 
bringing parents and caregivers on board, 
too, by making them more aware of the 
ways that these community resources can 
work together more effectively for the well¬ 
being of the young people. Given the 
enormous pressures facing families today, 
school/ museum/library collaborations need 










to provide multiple paths for parent/ 
caregiver involvement. They need to 
explore how to reach families effectively. 
Museums and libraries serve as important 
venues for family learning experiences that 
occur after school, on weekends, and 
during the summer. Workshop participants 
noted that museums and libraries can 
provide separate but concurrent adult 
learning programs—in such areas as 
basic literacy, English language instruction, 
civics education, or career advancement— 
that meet different family members’ 
learning needs. 

Shaping Public Policy 

Arguably the greatest obstacle facing 
museums and libraries is the fact that 
policymakers and the public generally do 
not understand the many ways in which 
museums and libraries see learning and 
education as a principal role and 
institutional responsibility. A top priority, 
therefore, is reframing the public 
conversation about learning to include 
institutions beyond schools. Expanding our 
understanding of learning in the “informal” 
education sector is essential. “We need to 
really look at some research that shows 
how libraries and museums contribute to 
the type of learning that is not easily 
quantified—and compare how that fits with 
the national education standards,” said 
Leslie Burger, director of the Princeton 


(New Jersey) Public Library. Two steps 
must be taken initially to successfully 
influence public policy: 

• Highlight strategies that successfully 
align programs with widely recognized 
measures such as state/national 
standards, end-of-course exams, college 
enrollment, and workforce development 
needs. Learning programs must also 
demonstrate how they help people 

to master the full range of skills and 
content needed to be productive 
citizens in today’s world. 

• Support additional research into 
the nature of informal learning and 
its relationship to, and influence 
on, learning in the classroom. 

A combination of qualitative and 
quantitative data from a more robust 
research effort can shed valuable light 
on the ways in which libraries and 
museums make a difference. 

In order to influence the ongoing public 
policy debate about education reform, 
advocates of school/museum/library 
collaboration need to find champions 
in the public sphere capable of bringing 
museums and libraries to the education 
policy-making table. 


Five steps to making the 
vision a reality: foster 
and sustain a network 
to share best practices; 
learn what makes 
partnerships work; 
encourage innovation; 
get everyone involved, 
including parents and 
caregivers; and educate 
and work with 
policymakers. 











EMBRACING INNOVATION: 

EXAMPLES OF PARTNERSHIP, COLLABORATION, AND LEARNING 


In the closing session of the workshop, 
participants were asked to consider one 
last set of questions: What is at stake? 
What happens if the goal of strengthening 
museum, library, and school collaboration 
is never realized? What opportunities would 
be lost? 

One thing came through loud and 
clear: change is already underway and 
partnerships are evolving at the local level. 
Policymakers, educators, and museum 
and library professionals must develop 
the policy infrastructure and funding 
mechanisms needed to bring these efforts 
to scale. "The blurring of the lines has 
begun to occur in many communities,” 


. ■■■ i. i 

If we do not work on the notional and 
state levels to promote organized change, 
we are In danger of creating, once again, 
have and have not communities, 
progressive and underdeveloped systems 
that do not address the learning 
needs of global societies. 

15 


one participant observed. “If we do not 
work on the national and state levels to 
promote organized change, we are in 
danger of creating, once again, have and 
have not communities, progressive and 
underdeveloped systems that do not 
address the learning needs of global 
societies." 

On the other hand, as one participant 
noted, there is “an opportunity to cross- 
pollinate education and inject new life 
into communities of learners if we can 
refine, highlight, document, and share 
examples.” Many of the new models, best 
practices, and emerging partnerships still 
exist in relative isolation, with too little 
dissemination, analysis, and cross¬ 
fertilization. Conference participants made 
great strides in sketching out pioneering 
relationships between these institutions 
and K-12 schools, teachers, and 
administrators—and in imagining new 
possibilities. 

Although collaborations among museums, 
schools, and libraries are broad and 
diverse, the various projects represented 
by workshop participants generally 
reflected four broad brush approaches: 

• Hybrid institutions 

• Capacity-building partnerships 

• Discipline-based partnerships, and 

• Community and technology partnerships 


These conceptual categories do not reflect 
the full breadth and depth of current 
practice, but they provide some structure 
for considering different collaborative 
possibilities. Within these four categories, 
the specific examples illustrate a few of 
the many ways in which museums and 
libraries are using their considerable 
resources and assets—collections, 
programs, staff expertise, experience with 
new technologies, relationships with family 
groups—to develop and sustain different 
kinds of collaborations and to effectively 
address students’ learning needs. 

Hybrid institutions: 

The Museum School 

Around the country, some school systems 
are joining forces with museums to 
experiment with a new structural 
model: charter schools located within 
museum “campuses” that build on the 
competencies and resources of museums 
in order to achieve quality educational 
results. These partnerships blur 
institutional barriers and leverage the 
physical space, collections, exhibitions, 
and content knowledge of museums 
to broaden and deepen students’ 
educational experiences. 

1 Henry Ford Academy (Dearborn, Ml) 

Launched in 1997, the Henry Ford 

Academy is a public charter school 

created by the Ford Motor Company, 





















the Wayne County (Michigan) Public 
Schools, and the Henry Ford Museum 
and Greenfield Village, where the 
academy is also housed. The academy’s 
mission is three-fold: to create and share 
new models for education reform; 
demonstrate the power of community 
partnership in education; and develop 
innovative curriculum to prepare 
students for success. “There is a lot of 
blurring of lines,” says Steven K. Hamp, 
the museum’s president. “This was really 
a natural outgrowth of our commitment 
to our educational mission as a 
museum.” The curriculum, which was 
developed in close consultation with the 
school district and the Ford Motor 
Company, helps students develop the 
skills and knowledge necessary for 
success in today’s global, high-tech 
marketplace. In addition to core 
academic content, the academy focuses 
on technology, communication, thinking 
and learning, and personal management. 
Students have nametags just like the 
museum staff, and they are an integral 
part of the museum’s daily life. 

The academy has received numerous 
state and national awards, including the 
2002 Governor's Excellence in Practice 
Award and the 2001 Michigan 
Association of Public Schools Summit 
Award for its strong links between the 
classroom and the real world. A high 


school mentoring program that piloted 
some of the strategies used at the 
academy received IMLS’s National Award 
for Museum Service in 1998. More 
importantly, students, many of whom 
come from underserved schools in Wayne 
County and the City of Detroit, are scoring 
well above the county average on state 
standardized tests. Eighty-five percent 
make it to their senior year, and ninety 
percent of graduates go on to college. 
“When we started out, people told us 
we were crazy for working with this 
population,” Hamp says. “But I think 
museums have failed adolescents. 
Inserting a bunch of urban kids on 
our campus has made us more visitor- 
focused, more kid-focused.” 

2 California Science Center School 
(Los Angeles, CA) 

A partnership between the California 
Science Center and the Los Angeles 
Unified School District, the California 
Science Center School opened its doors 
on September 9, 2004, welcoming 690 
students in kindergarten through fifth 
grade. The neighborhood-based school 
offers an enriched curriculum 
emphasizing math, science, and 
technology. With its integration of science 
content, museum-style learning, and 
traditional school curriculum, the Science 
Center School will serve as a model for 
improving science learning in interactive 
and imaginative ways. 


HYBRID INSTITUTIONS: THE MUSEUM SCHOOL 

■ Integrating students into the life of a 
museum via a charter school has produced 
students who excel. Ninety per cent of 
Henry Ford Academy graduates go on 

to college. 

■ Opening for the 2004 academic year, the 
California Science Center School now has 
690 students from K-5. The school blends 
science content and museum style learning 
with a traditional curriculum. 


16 















But the school is just one part of Amgen 
Center for Science Learning, a 56,000 
square-foot facility designed to promote 
science teaching and learning throughout 
the entire community. “One of the goals of 
the Amgen Center for Science Learning is 
to foster a unique synergy, promoting 
science and science learning by forming 
partnerships with universities, school 
districts, government agencies, community 
groups and informal science institutions,” 
explains Jeff Rudolph, California Science 
Center president and CEO. Educators are 
able to attend professional development 
workshops, and they can conduct student 
and science education seminars at the 
center’s facilities. Teachers can also 
preview the latest in science instruction 
materials at the facility’s professional 
development library. 



Students visit the bus on which Rosa Parks refused to give up 
her seat, inciting the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56. 

(Henry Ford Academy) 


Capacity-building Partnerships 

Public and school libraries have long been 
integral parts of the education landscape 
in America, but their roles are changing. 
New technologies are transforming the 
roles of public librarians and school library 
media specialists, and new educational 
structures—charter schools, small schools, 
home schooling—are likewise changing the 
traditional school library. In this context, 
academic institutions, foundations, and 
public funding agencies have formed an 
array of capacity-building partnerships 
aimed at helping libraries and librarians 
meet the demands of this changing field. 

In two cases below, academic institutions 
have played a research-and-development 
role for innovative experiments in 
education, learning, and library services. 

In the third example, a state library 
administrative agency is using small 
grants to help foster community-based 
collaborations among schools and libraries. 


1 University of Washington Library and 
Information Services in Small High 
Schools (Seattle, WA) 

In recent years, school districts across 
the country, including New York City, 
Boston, Chicago, and Seattle, have 
began experimenting with restructuring 
large high schools into multiplexes of 
smaller schools under the same roof. 
According to early research, small 
schools have lower dropout rates, greater 
academic achievement, and higher 
levels of satisfaction among students, 
teachers, and parents. But how do 
small schools’ needs for library and 
information services differ from their 
larger counterparts? And how should 
existing resources for library and 
information services be realigned 
to meet the needs of small schools? 
These are the kinds of questions that 
will be addressed over the course of 
a three-year collaborative between the 



Students race sailboats in Waterworks at the Big Lab. Teacher Tom Shreve lectures at a 2004 summer workshop for 

(California Science Center School) collaborating teachers and school library media specialists. 

(Institute for Library and Information Literacy Education) 


17 























University of Washington’s Information 
School and five high schools in the 
Seattle Public School District, funded 
in part by the Institute of Museum and 
Library Services. “Small schools have 
a lot of potential benefits," says 
Michael Eisenberg, dean and professor 
of the Information School at the 
University of Washington, “but we still 
need to think through how we deal with 
centralized services like libraries and 
information technology.” It’s not just 
a question of rethinking the relationship 
of school libraries to schools, Eisenberg 
adds, but rather rethinking the 
relationship of school libraries to society 
in general. “The modern role of the 
school library is not just seven or eight 
hours per day,” he says. “It’s twenty-four 
seven. It’s reaching into the home. It’s 
an integrated role. It’s having school 
library programs take their role alongside 
other learning institutions in society.” 

2 Institute for Library and Information 
Literacy Education (Kent, OH) 

When Greg Byerly and Carolyn S. 

Brodie looked at the field of library and 
information science at the turn of the 
twenty-first century, the professors from 
Kent State University’s School of Library 
and Information Services saw the perfect 
storm. The generation of school librarians 
and media professionals that had entered 
the field in the 1960s and 1970s were 


EMBRACING INNOVATION: EXAMPLES OF 
PARTNERSHIP, COLLABORATION, AND LEARNING 


retiring just as digital technologies and 
the Internet were transforming the ways 
in which students relate to media. The 
upshot of this convergence was a 
nationwide dearth of qualified school 
library media specialists and young adult 
librarians—at the very moment in which 
the roles those professionals played were 
changing quickly. First Lady Laura Bush, 
herself a former school librarian, 
recognized this problem as well and 
helped create the “Recruiting and 
Educating Librarians for the 21st Century 
Program” at I MLS. Brodie viewed the 
program’s genesis as “an opportune time 
to expand the Kent State School of 
Library and Information Science’s efforts 
to increase the number of school library 
media specialists in Ohio.” Through a pair 
of I MLS grants, the school has been able 
to offer full scholarships to thirty-four 
students to become either a school library 
media specialist or young adult librarian. 
At the same time, the school received 
funding from both IMLS and the U.S. 
Department of Education to launch the 
Institute for Library and Information 
Literacy Education (ILILE), in conjunction 
with the College and Graduate School 
of Education and University Libraries. 
ILILE is a collaboration of K-12 teachers 
and library and media specialists who 
are concerned with advancing library 
and information literacy in the 
school curriculum. 


CAPACITY-BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS 


■ To finely calibrate the information needs of 
smaller high schools and their students, the 
University of Washington’s Information School 
has embarked on a three-year collaboration 
with 5 public high schools in Seattle. 

■ Retirement by “baby boom” generation librarians 

signals the possibility of an acute shortage of 

professional staff. Kent State University in Ohio 

is meeting this challenge with its Institute for 

Library and Information Literacy Education, a 

collaboration of K-12 teachers and libraiy and 
# 

media specialists. Since 2003, more than 800 
professionals have received training. 

■ All learning is “local”—it happens one child at a 
time. So the Kentucky Department of Libraries and 
Archives built partnerships between public libraries 
and K-12 schools. “World of Readers” supports 
summer reading partnerships and “Prime Time 
Family Reading Time©” supports families reading 
together. Key to making it work: a consultant who 
helps local libraries (many in remote, rural areas) 
develop and monitor quality programs. 

18 













Since 2003, more than eight hundred 
Ohio teachers and school library media 
specialists have attended training or 
continuing education programs through 
ILILE. The institute has partnered with 
a variety of Ohio organizations including the 
Ohio Educational Library Media Association, 
INFOhio (a statewide school library 
network), and the State Library of Ohio. 
Among the many ILILE projects, the 
institute is developing a replicable model 
for curriculum development and delivery 
through which PK-12 teachers, school 
library media specialists, administrators, 
and students promote academic success 
through information literacy skills. Byerly 
notes, "We want to show that as students 
learn to use library resources more 
effectively, they develop competence in new 
forms of electronic communication and 
information access technologies.” 

3 Kentucky Department for Libraries and 
Archives School and Public Library 
Partnership Programs (Frankfort, KY) 


Using federal Library Services Technology 
Act (LSTA) funds administered by the 
I MLS Office of State Programs, the 
Kentucky Department of Libraries and 
Archives has developed several programs 
aimed at building partnerships between 
public libraries and K-12 schools. The 
agency’s World of Readers program 
supports summer reading partnerships 
between libraries and schools throughout 
the state. In addition to its financial 
support, the agency has a consultant 
on hand to help local libraries, many 
of which are in remote rural areas, 
develop and monitor quality programs. 
“One of the things that has made this 
so successful has been our ability to 
disperse this to the local level,” says 
James Nelson, state librarian and 
commissioner. The agency has an 
online program planning and resource 
guide, but the program is deliberately 
decentralized. Similar mechanisms are 
used for the agency's other programs: 
Prime Time Family Reading Time©, 


a family reading program, and the 
School/Library Partnership, a program 
that supports school and library 
cooperation. “We really encourage those 
partnerships at the local level. They are 
in the best position to assess what their 
needs really are.” 

Discipline-based Partnerships 

Discipline-based partnerships enable 
museums and libraries to use their 
expertise to help strengthen K-12 teaching 
in specific content areas. Although 
the examples below focus on science, 
museums and libraries representing other 
disciplines, such as history and art, are 
involved in similar collaborations. In many 
disciplines, museums and libraries have 
developed programs that help students 
meet state and national reading and 
writing standards. In the arts, for example, 
research has shown that studying the arts 
helps to improvement achievement in other 
subjects, including reading, writing, and 
mathematics. In places like science 



Fulton County Summer Reading Program (Kentucky CILS researchers and practitioners investigate science 

Department for Libraries and Archives School exhibits at the Exploratorium. (Exploratorium) 

and Public Library Partnership Programs) 


Exploring science through Primero La Ciencia 
at the Chicago Botanic Garden 

(Chicago Botanic Gardens) 












EMBRACING INNOVATION: EXAMPLES OF 
PARTNERSHIP, COLLABORATION, AND LEARNING 


centers, teachers and students can gain 
insight into scientific processes and 
methodologies. Museums and libraries 
house disciplinary experts who research, 
collect, and interpret artifacts, documents, 
and other aspects of material and written 
culture. They employ specialists who are 
well-versed in creating specific, content- 
focused learning opportunities. These 
discipline-based partnerships can be a 
win-win for all parties. By partnering with 
schools, museums and libraries are able 
to contribute meaningfully to education, 
while schools gain access to professional 
development, new curriculum, and 
innovative pedagogy. 

1 Center for Informal Learning 
and Schools (San Francisco, CA) 

A collaboration of the Exploratorium 
San Francisco, Kings College London, 
and the University of California Santa 
Cruz, the Center for Informal Learning 
and Schools (CILS) supports research 
and scholarships aimed at improving 
K-12 science education through the 
use of informal science institutions 
like science museums, science centers, 
natural history museums and zoos. 

"Our goal is to develop new leaders, 
new knowledge, and new tools that 
can leverage alliances between informal 
science learning institutions and 
schools,” explains Dr. Rob Semper, 

CILS principal investigator and 
Exploratorium executive associate 
director. “We’re focused on making 


K-12 science education more compelling 
and accessible to a diverse student 
population, and to learning how to make 
use of the successful features of informal 
learning in formal schooling and science 
learning. In particular, the center is 
focused on bridging the worlds of 
research and practice and is hoping to 
develop usable knowledge for the field.” 

Founded in 2002, and initially funded 
by the National Science Foundation, 

NEC Foundation, and the Noyce 
Foundation, the Center has emerged as 
one of the leading institutions focused 
on strengthening the infrastructure for 
improving science education in the K-12 
years. Over 100 museum educators have 
participated in CILS professional 
development programs, and the center 
has enrolled 24 graduate students and 
appointed eight postdoctoral fellows. 
According to Exploratorium Director 
Goery Delacote, the center’s success is 
rooted in the extensive collaborations 
among academic, school, and science 
institutions. “It is through the creation 
of these authentic alliances between 
the K-12 system and the informal 
science world that science education 
can be significantly, and more 
importantly, sustainably improved.” 

In the coming years, Semper hopes to 
develop the center’s research base and 
disseminate its results more broadly to 
both the K-12 and the informal science 
education communities. 


DISCIPLINE-BASED PARTNERSHIPS 


■ K-12 science education is made more 
compelling through a cross-institutional 
and international collaboration among 
the Exploratorium in San Francisco, 
the University of California Santa Cruz 
and Kings College, London. More than 
100 museum educators have gone 
through professional development 
programs since 2002. 



The Big Lab at the Center for Informal Learning and 
Schools is a giant space where students can conduct a 
variety of experiments in physics, ecology and flotation. 

























The old myth is that urban kids, 
particularly middle-school kids, 
aren't interested in science. That's a 
myth: it just has to be taught right. 


2 Chicago Botanic Gardens: Science 
First/Primero la Ciencia (Chicago, IL) 

Community building has been an 
integral part of the Chicago Botanic 
Garden’s mission since it was 
established in 1972. The garden has 
been organizing school gardens in 
partnerships with the Chicago Public 
Schools since the 1980s, and in 2002 
it launched Science First, a science- 
immersion program aimed at upper 
elementary school students in Chicago 
Public Schools. Through a combination 
of classroom instruction, hands-on 
activities, games, and student projects, 
Science First has boosted student 
performance in the sciences. “The old 
myth is that urban kids, particularly 
middle-school kids, aren’t interested in 
science. That’s a myth: it just has to be 
taught right,” says Larry DeBuhr, the 
garden’s vice president of education. 

In 2004, the garden launched Primero 
la Ciencia, a similar program aimed at 
students from Chicago’s burgeoning 
Latino communities. For these and 
similar efforts, the Garden was awarded 
a 2004 National Award for Museum 
and Library Service, one of six 
organizations to win the prestigious 
I MLS award. “This education is vital 
in preparing the next generation of 
scientists to care for the earth’s plants, 
which we all need for food, medicine, 
clothing, and shelter,” says Barbara 


Whitney Carr, president and CEO. 

Now the challenge lies in scaling up. 
With the right support, she adds, the 
garden can grow fully into its role as “a 
dynamic programming center providing 
education and scientific assistance 
to the citizens of Chicago, the nation, 
and to our international partners.” 

3 Museum of Science: Establishing 
a Gateway to Technology and 
Engineering Education (Boston, MA) 

Although the United States led the 
world in technology and engineering 
for most of the twentieth century, global 
competitors are quickly closing the gap. 
Acknowledging this trend, thirty states 
now have technology standards in 
their state education frameworks. 
Massachusetts passed its standards 
in 2001, laying out clear goals and 
objectives for technology and 
engineering, but the commonwealth did 
not stipulate what instructional materials 
educators should use, nor did they 
establish a clear pedagogy. This gap is 
precisely what the Museum of Science 
in Boston hopes to bridge with its new 
Gateway to Technology and Engineering 
Education. Supported in part by an 
I MLS grant, the Gateway is a portal of 
online and physical resources that will 
help Massachusetts educators meet the 
commonwealth's technology and 
engineering teaching standards. 


21 














"We learned that in order to implement 
entirely new educational standards, 
educators need a well-organized, 
user-friendly, and reliable source of 
information about the instructional 
materials available to them," says Cary 
Sneider, vice president for educator 
programs and principal investigator 
of the Gateway project. The Gateway, 
which will include web-based education 
resources, a space for online 
collaboration, a website for planning 
museum visits, and distance learning 
courses for teachers, will be working 
with teams from fifty Massachusetts 
school districts over the next three years 
to help them plan course sequences, 
select appropriate curricula, and initiate 
professional development programs to 
meet the new standards. According to 
loannis Miaoulis, president and director 
of the Museum of Science, the Gateway 
project is a critical component of the 
National Center for Technological 
Literacy, which is housed in the 
Museum of Science. “It strongly 
supports our national effort to introduce 
engineering as the new discipline in 
schools and significantly enhances our 
campaign for better understanding of 
the human-made world." 


EMBRACING INNOVATION: EXAMPLES OF 
PARTNERSHIP, COLLABORATION, AND LEARNING 


Community and Technology 

Community has always been at the heart 
of education in America, whether 
community is defined as being rooted in 
place (a neighborhood school, for example) 
or common interest (a professional 
association). Today, the Internet has 
redefined the idea of community, liberating 
it from the boundaries of geography. These 
examples illustrate some approaches that 
museums, schools, and libraries are taking 
to build strong learning communities— 
place-based and virtual—focusing on the 
K-12 years. The Birmingham Learning 
Initiative, for example, is a broad 
partnership that is building a physical 
learning community in a central city 
neighborhood by involving museums and 
libraries as well as schools to develop 
and provide resources for teachers and 
students. The Colorado Digitization Project 
and the Digital Library Collection at the 
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute are 
strengthening the teachers’ capabilities 
within individual states and across 
the country by offering collaborative 
relationships that digitize previously 
inaccessible, culturally significant 
resources while also providing teachers 
with an interpretive context, an easy-to-find 
web portal, and the training they need to 
integrate the materials in the classroom. 


DISCIPLINE-BASED PARTNERSHIPS 


■ Training the next generation of botanists— 
and making plant science accessible to 
Chicago’s growing Latino elementary 
school population—has been the mission 
of the Chicago Botanic Gardens “Primero 
la Ciencia” immersion program. 

■ The Museum of Science in Boston is 
working to secure America’s pre-eminence 
in engineering and technology with its 
Gateway to Technology and Engineering 
Education, a portal of online and physical 
resources to help Massachusetts educators 
meet required teaching standards. Fifty 
public school districts are involved. 









23 


1 Birmingham Learning Initiative 
(Birmingham, AL) 

Arguably one of the more ambitious 
collaborations on the landscape, the 
Birmingham Learning Initiative is a 
community development partnership 
between the Birmingham Board of 
Education, a coalition of community- 
based groups, major cultural institutions 
(including the Birmingham Museum of 
Art, the YMCA, the Civil Rights Institute, 
the Jazz Hall of Fame, and the Public 
Library), the University of Alabama at 
Birmingham, the Annenberg Institute 
for School Reform, and local real estate 
developers. Launched in 2002, the 
Initiative’s goal is to create a mixed- 
race, mixed-income neighborhood in 
downtown Birmingham, where the city’s 
cultural institutions and schools form 
a cross-generational “Learning Zone” 
offering residents a network of 
educational opportunities. With funding 
from HUD’s HOPE VI initiative, an $8 
million renovation of historic Philips 
High School will anchor the zone, which 
will also include a renovated theater and 
reading room, an early learning center, 
an arts-enriched elementary school, 
and a community school program 
for children, youth, and adults. The 
Birmingham Learning Initiative is the 
outgrowth of an earlier I MLS grant to 
BCAP (Birmingham Cultural Alliance 
Partnership). “In Birmingham there is 


an emerging civic and cultural 
partnership based on the realization 
that learning is the greatest equalizer,” 
says Dennie Palmer Wolf, director of the 
Opportunity and Accountability Program 
at the Annenberg Institute. 

2 The Civil Rights Movement: 1950 to the 
Present, A Digital Library Collection 

The Digital Library Collection, 
a three-way partnership between the 
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, 
Washington University in St. Louis, 
and WGBH, may well redefine the way 
students and teachers learn about the 
Civil Rights Movement. Building 
on WGBH’s Teachers’ Domain 
(www.teachersdomain.org), an online 
digital library of multimedia resources 
that supports standards-based education 
from elementary through high school, 
the Digital Library Collection offers a 
breathtaking multimedia archive of civil 
rights history, including interviews from 
the acclaimed “Eyes on the Prize” 
documentary (which is a part of the 
Henry Hampton Collection from the 
Media and Film Archive at Washington 
University), WGBH’s broadcast 
collections ("The American Experience,” 
“Frontline,” and “Say Brother/Basic 
Black”), and the Birmingham Civil 
Rights Institute’s peerless collection 
of oral histories and other primary 
sources. With support from the Institute 


of Museum and Library Services, the 
collection is catalogued, coded with 
software tags, and correlated to each 
state’s education standards, curriculum, 
and grade level, making it a powerful 
learning tool for teachers across the 
country. "The collection makes this 
historical era come alive for students, 
presenting compelling media in formats 
that promote active learning about this 
vital period and its impact,” says WGBH 
Executive Producer Ted Sicker. 

3 Colorado Digitization Program 
(Denver, CO) 

Like many other breakthrough ideas, 
the Colorado Digitization Program (CDP) 
began by asking, “What if?" What if the 
state’s historical societies, libraries and 
museums could put their collective 
holdings online? What would it mean 
to education if teachers and students 
anywhere in the country could view the 
state’s heritage holdings online through 
text, graphics, audio, and video? Since 
1998, with substantial support from 
the Institute of Museum and Library 
Services, fifty institutions across 
Colorado—and eighty more in other 
Western states—have created more than 
55,000 digital objects: photographs, 
maps, diaries, works of art, exhibitions, 
and three-dimensional artifacts. All of 
it is posted on the program’s web site, 
www.cdpheritage.org. 







Just as important, this treasure trove 
of primary source material is enhanced 
by online and off-line lesson plans, 
workshops, and tools for teachers. 
Drawing on the Library of Congress’s 
American Memory Fellowship program 
model, the CDP is working with teachers 
through face-to-face workshops, distance 
learning courses, and circuit riding to 
help build awareness of how museums 
and libraries can help students and 
teachers meet state education 
standards. The program worked with 
more than 250 teachers in 2003, 
and it plans to work with even more 
in 2004 and 2005. 

“We have enabled cultural heritage 
institutions of all sizes to do something 
wonderful for their users and do a better 
job of meeting their missions,” says 
Nancy Allen, dean and director of the 
Penrose Library at the University of 
Denver, which houses the program. 

“We are quite sure that many of our 
partners would never have been able 
to move forward with standards-based, 
operative digitization programs without 
our partnership." 


“The future of education in America is 
at stake,” noted John H. Falk, director 
of the Institute for Learning Innovation 
in Annapolis. Maryland. "The status and 
future fate of museums, libraries, and 
schools will be determined by our ability 
to clarify a meaningful and authentic 
learning mission.” In a sense, workshop 
participants and their innovative colleagues 
are cartographers of an evolving field, 
mapping the shoreline and marking the 
landscape for those who will follow. 

In sharing selected examples of what 
exists, identifying persistent themes, and 
suggesting future priorities, these leaders 
are offering models and approaches that 
point the way to creating true learning 
communities. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful,” 
one participant asked, “if a baby born 
today could graduate from high school 
with a portfolio of learning experiences 
from museums, businesses, libraries, 
theatres, civic groups, and performing 
arts organizations, as well as from 
their schools?” 


COMMUNITY AND TECHNOLOGY 


■ In Birmingham, Alabama, museums, 
libraries, the board of education and real 
estate interests have all come together to 
build a learning zone in the city’s down¬ 
town, with public schools at the center of 
a network of educational opportunities. 

■ America’s greatest civic advance of the 20th 
century has been digitally transformed into 
a multimedia archive supporting standards 
based education from elementary through 
high school. Future generations will be able 
to access the Civil Rights movement as it 
actually happened. 

■ The history of much of the western U.S. 
is now at the fingertips of learners. Since 
1998, the Colorado Digitization Program 
(CDP) has brought together the holdings 
of 50 state institutions—and of 80 other 
institutions in Western states. More than 
55,000 photographs, maps, diaries, 
3-dimensional objects and more can now 
be accessed through a single web site. 


24 
















APPENDIX — GLOSSARY 


Charting the Landscape, Mapping 
New Paths brought together participants 
in diverse professional cultures. Our 
goals included exchanging experience, 
knowledge, and theory across disciplines 
and communities—individual, 
disciplinary, and geographical. We 
recognize that cultures have specialized 
vocabularies and definitions whose uses 
in a different setting can be confusing. 
To facilitate conversation within the 
workshop, we developed a working 
glossary for words that: 

• commonly arise in the context of 
K-12, library, or museum education; 

• lack a universal or even a widely 
shared meaning in this context; and 

• differ in meaning among 
our disciplines. 

IMLS has no intention of usurping 
specialized usage in any of our fields, 
or altering the meaning these terms 
or concepts have in their originating 
disciplines. Our workshop goals did not 
include consensus about definitions, or 
even discussion of the terms themselves. 
Our hope was to provide a starting 
place for understanding each other’s 
assumptions and models, and to foster 
interdisciplinary collaboration. 


access 1 

When used in its broadest sense, this term 
encapsulates the purpose of librarianship— 
enabling people to identify, locate, and 
use the information that will meet their 
educational, occupational, and personal 
needs. Librarians espouse principles of 
free inquiry and intellectual freedom; 
vthey oppose barriers to access, such as 
censorship or restrictions based on age, 
cost, etc. In library organizational 
structure, access services encompass 
functions such as circulation, interlibrary 
loan, and technical services. In the context 
of automated information systems, one 
talks about the way a computer "accesses" 
records in a file. In cataloging, access 
points are the names, subject headings, 
etc., which lead to the bibliographic 
record. www. sir. arizona. edu/resources/gloss 
ary.html 

capacity building 2 

Helping an organization to refine goals, 
arrive at measurable outcomes, and 
identify resources needed and available 
to support growth, increase excellence, 
and meet community needs. 

charter school 3 

An independent public school that is open 
to all students, receives public funds for 
operation, is freed from many rules and 
regulations that district schools are 
generally required to follow, and is 
accountable for results that are specified 
in a performance contract with the school’s 
public sponsor. Sponsors can be school 
boards, special chartering boards, or other 


authorized public agencies. Charter school 
laws differ from one state to another, 
but all states require that schools be 
accountable for student outcomes. 
www. aecf. org/initiatives/mc/sf/started/glossa 
ry.htm 

collaboration 4 

A mutually beneficial and well-defined 
relationship entered into by two or more 
organizations to achieve common goals. 

The relationship includes a commitment 
to mutual relationships and goals; a jointly 
developed structure and shared 
responsibility; mutual authority and 
accountability for success; and sharing 
of resources and rewards. 

community of practice 2 

A group of people who share a paradigm 
of action based on consensus about which 
theories, models, and practices are most 
likely to support desired results. 

digital library 1 

An organized collection of knowledge, 
stored in digital/electronic format, and 
accessible to users via digital/electronic 
interface technologies, www.digitalib.geo 
metaphors, com/west/ glossary/ 

digital resources 2 

Computer-mediated experiences, programs, 
or products intended to support learning; 
most frequently via the medium of the 
Internet or World-Wide Web. The term may 
extend to commercial or non-commercial 
hardware, software, data transfer 
connections and protocols, systems at any 
scale, and metadata. 




document-based question (DBQ) 5 

Used most often in social studies class¬ 
rooms, DBQ-based teaching builds the 
ability for students to use historical sources 
in multiple forms. The DBQ requires many 
of the skills used in research—interpreting 
primary and secondary sources, evaluating 
sources, considering multiple points 
of view, using historic evidence, and 
developing and supporting these. 

educational program 2 

A structured set of experiences which 
intends to create learning for individuals 
who participate. 

educational standards (standards of 
education) 2 

Formally adopted guidelines and/or a body 
of indicators intended to show the extent 
to which classroom education has achieved 
desired results. 

evaluation 1 

A process that attempts to systematically 
and objectively determine the relevance, 
effectiveness, and impact of activities in 
light of their objectives. Evaluation can be 
related to structure, process, or outcome. 
www. iime. org/glossary. htm 

IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library 
Services) 2 

The primary federal agency for funding and 
distribution of information about library 
and museum services. 


impact 2 

The result of aggregated outcomes for 
individuals. In some usages, impact 
incorporates other changes in context, 
environmental conditions, or other 
circumstances. 

indicator 2 

A measurable phenomenon identified to 
represent the extent to which an intended 
outcome occurred for an individual. 

information literacy e 

The ability to recognize a need for 
information, to identify, locate, evaluate, 
and apply information to the question or 
problem at hand. 

learning 2 

Growth (usually a gain) in any dimension 
where experience mediates knowledge, 
skill, attitude, or behavior. For IMLS, 
learning is not limited to information-based 
constructs, but includes domains such 
as the cognitive, affective, social, 
physiological, kinetic, aesthetic, behavioral, 
and many others. Learning is an individual 
phenomenon that happens through the 
vehicle of formal instruction or informal 
(but not necessarily unstructured) 
experience. Education, by distinction, is 
the process that strives to create learning. 

• free-choice learning 7 

Free-choice learning is the type 
of learning guided by a person's needs 
and interests—learning people engage in 
throughout their lives to find out more 
about what is useful, compelling or just 


plain interesting to them...the vast, 
important and successful learning 
enterprise that takes place outside of 
schools and the workplace - learning 
from museums, libraries, the Internet, 
television, film, books, newspapers, 
radio and magazines.... It is self- 
directed, voluntary, and guided by 
an individual’s needs and interests. 
www. ilinet. org/freechoicelearning.html. 
Antonym, compulsory learning; see also 
formal learning .2 

• formal learning 2 

Learning directed by a curriculum and 
educational activities designed for a 
specific school term or subject within 
a larger framework of educational or 
discipline-based standards. The most 
common connotation is learning 
associated with organized academia 
between kindergarten and post¬ 
graduate degree. 

• informal learning 2 

Learning directed by the individual and 
adapted to the individual’s interest, 
learning style, and pace. Informal 
learning may be carefully structured and 
may include a teacher - the primary 
characteristic is usually its distinction 
from learning inside the framework of 
organized academia (K to post-graduate). 

• inquiry-based learning 3 

A model of teaching and learning in 
which a curriculum and learning-related 
processes are based on interests, 


APPENDIX — GLOSSARY 




questions, and learning approaches 
defined by students themselves. The 
model emphasizes communication, peer 
interaction, and individual pacing and 
process. 

• learning community 2 

A group of people who contribute formally 
or informally, actively or peripherally, 
in person, in print, or virtually, to one 
another's effective learning. Learning 
communities are fluid; they expand, 
contract, and change membership to 
meet evolving needs of their members 
over time. Learning community follows 
the individual in the continuum of learner 
through Nation of Learners. 

• learning society 2 

A social environment at the national or 
cultural level in which all individuals are 
encouraged to reach their full potential 
to learn. One in which knowledge and its 
supporting structures at the individual 
and aggregate levels are respected 
and fostered by social, family, and 
professional attitudes, structures, 
and resources. 

• lifelong learning 
(learning over a lifetime) 1 

Learning in which a person engages 
throughout his or her life. It includes but 
is not limited to learning that occurs in 
schools and other formal educational 
programs, www.mnvu.org/mnvu/265.jsp 


• Nation of Learners 2 

In IMLS’ vision, a nation (e.g. the US), 
in which all participants have the 
knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviors, 
and resources they need for successful 
formal and informal learning at any age. 
We believe that learning crosses many 
domains- intellectual, social, affective, 
kinesthetic, and artistic, among 
numerous others. This workshop 
focuses on K-12 as a foundation 
for lifelong learning and full participation 
in family, community, work, and society. 

• object-based learning 9 

An instructional strategy that is based on 
the idea that people can learn from an 
object by exploring the object itself and 
its context. Students learn to observe 
closely, question, research, discuss, and 
analyze the major properties of an object 
- its physical features, history, design, 
function, value, and construction. They 
can then derive new meaning and draw 
conclusions. Depending on the aim of 
a study unit, objects can become a 
central focus, a stimulus for a broad 
exploration, or a motivator to particular 
students to look beyond the obvious. 

• self-directed learning i 

Is the personalization of learning which 
takes into account individual student 
characteristics, talents, interests and 
academic backgrounds. The learner is 
able to control and direct their learning 
at a pace agreed by the student, parents 
and teacher advisor. 
www. thss. ca/thss/index.php 


• 21st-century learner 2 

One who has the knowledge, attitudes, 
and skills sets that enable learning 
across media, including proficient 
literacy, numeracy, computer-use, critical 
thinking, problem-solving, and sensitivity 
to the existence of diverse perspectives 
and culture-specific interpretation 
of information. 

LSTA (Library Services and 
Construction Act) 2 

Subtitle B of the Museum and Library 
Services Act of 1996. It comprises IMLS 
programs of funding for library service, 
including Grants to States; National 
Leadership Grants for libraries, Librarians 
for the 21st Century, and grants for Native 
American and Native Hawaiian Library 
Services. In 2003 Congress reauthorized 
the Museum and Library Services Act, P.L. 
108-81. 

magnet schools 2 

Schools that specialize in a specific set 
of disciplines, usually created to attract 
students with particular talents or interests 
from a broad geographic area. 

Museum Services Act 2 

Subtitle C of the Museum and Library 
Services Act of 1996. Using this authority 
IMLS makes awards for Museums for 
America, National Leadership Grants to 
museums, Conservation Project Support, 
21st-Century Museum Professionals, 
the conservation and museum assessment 
programs (CAP and MAP), and Native 


American Museum Services. In 2003, 
Congress reauthorized the Museum and 
Library Services Act, P.L. 108-81. 1 

need 2 

The gap between conditions individuals 
want for themselves and those they have, 
and/or the gap between conditions providers 
of programs, products, or services want for 
their audiences and those that exist. 

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) 2.10 

On January 8, 2002 President George W. 
Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act 
of 2001 (NCLB). This education legislation 
reauthorized and significantly expanded the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act 
of 1965. NCLB provides federal funding 
for a variety of programs in schools, 
primarily to benefit low-income students, 
and sets up systems of accountability for 
improving student achievement. 

outcome 2 

A gain or change in knowledge, skill, 
attitude, behavior, status, or life condition 
of an individual participant, visitor, or user 
of a product, service, or program. In IMLS’s 
usage, an outcome is a specialized 
category of result, usually produced by the 
vehicle of learning. Outcomes can occur at 
any scale and at any point from immediate 
through long term. While outcomes can be 
positive or negative, positive outcomes are 
the intended concomitant of library, 
museum, and classroom education. 


OBE (outcomes-based evaluation) 2 

In I MLS usage, an umbrella term that 
comprises program, project, or product 
planning and evaluation based on identified 
target audience needs, intended learning 
results, and formal measurement that 
demonstrates the extent to which outcomes 
desired by planners are achieved. 

partnership 2 

In IMLS usage, a relationship between 
individuals or groups that is characterized 
by mutual cooperation and responsibility, 
as for the achievement of a specified goal 
(see collaboration). In this usage it 
describes a spectrum of relationships 
between two or more organizations, ranging 
from relatively informal cooperation 
through formal, legal agreement. 

result 2 

In IMLS usage, a consequence of a project 
or program, including outcomes, impact, 
outputs, or other forms of change, either 
positive or negative. 

virtual museum 2 

A collection of images, objects, or 
interactive experiences intentionally 
brought together and presented through 
a computer (usually via Internet/Web 
pathways) for aesthetic or other 
educational purposes. The collection 
may physically exist in whole or in part 
separate from its computer-mediated 
presentation, but need not do so to 
constitute a virtual museum. 


1 Result of Google search on “define: term of 
interest" in the absence of a dictionary-based 
definition. 

2 Consensus of IMLS staff in the absence of a 
widely accepted or dictionary-based definition, 
August 2004. 

3 Annie E. Casey Foundation, see 
www.aecf.org/initiatives/mc/sf/started/glossary.htm. 

4 Mattessich, Paul W., Marta Murray-Close, and 
Barbara R. Monsey (2001). Collaboration: What 
Makes It Work (2nd edition), Wilder Publishing 
Center: St. Paul, MN. Title page. Appendix A. 

5 Term coined by Peter Pappas, see 
www. edteck. com/dbq/testing/dbq. htm 

6 National Forum for Information Literacy, 
see www. infolit. org/definitions/index. html. 

7 Term coined by the Institute for Learning 
Innovation, see 

www. ilinet. org/freechoicelearning. html. 

8 Consensus of IMLS staff, as in note 2. For a 
comprehensive description of inquiry-based 
learning, see Thirteen/Ed online, 

www. thirteen. org/edonline/concept2class/month6. 

9 Adapted from 

www. chd.gse.gmu. edu/immersion/knowledgebase/str 
ategies/constructivism/objectbased.htm 

10 See www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/index.html. 


28 


APPENDIX — PARTICIPANT ROSTER 


Steven B. Bingler 

Principal In Charge 
Concordia, LLC 
New Orleans, LA 

Mamie Bittner* 

Director of Public & Legislative Affairs 

IMLS 

Washington, DC 

Wendy C. Blackwell 

Director of Education 

Port Discovery, The Children’s Museum 

Baltimore, MD 

Louise Blalock 

Chief Librarian 
Hartford Public Library 
Hartford, CT 

Mary S. Bleiberg 

VP, Policy, Planning and Fund Development 
The After-School Corporation 
New York, NY 

Patricia Breivik 

Dean of Libraries 
San Jose State University 
San Jose, CA 

Carolyn S.Brodie 

Professor 

Kent State University 

School of Library and Information Science 

Kent, OH 

Laurie Brooks* 

Senior Program Officer, State Programs 

Office of Library Services 

IMLS 

Washington, DC 


Charles M. Brown 

Director of Libraries 
Public Library 

of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County 
Charlotte, NC 

Nancy E. Bryk 

Interim Chief Curator 
The Henry Ford 
Dearborn, Ml 

Leslie Burger 

Director 

Princeton Public Library 
Princeton, NJ 

Greg Byerly 

Associate Professor 

Kent State University 

School of Library and Information Science 

Kent, OH 

Neil F. Carlson 

Writer 

Brooklyn, NY 

Schroeder Cherry 

Deputy Director of Museum Services 
IMLS 

Washington, DC 

Mary Chute 

Deputy Director of Library Services 
IMLS 

Washington, DC 

Shannon A. Clements 

Chief Operating Officer 
Henry Ford Learning Institute 
Dearborn, Ml 


29 


Wilmer S.Cody 

President 
Cody Associates 
New Orleans, LA 

Rebecca Danvers 

Director of Research and Technology 
IMLS 

Washington, DC 

Larry DeBuhr 

Vice President of Education 
Chicago Botanic Garden 
Glencoe, IL 

Kathleen Degyansky 

Assistant Director, Programs and Services 
Queens Library 
Jamaica, NY 

Allison Druin 

Assistant Professor 
University of Maryland 
College of Information Studies 
College Park, MD 

Mike Eisenberg 

Dean and Professor 
The Information School 
of the University of Washington 
Seattle, WA 

John H.Falk 

Director 

Institute for Learning Innovation 
Annapolis, MD 

Beth Fitzsimmons 

Chairman 

National Commission on Libraries 
and Information Science 
Washington, DC 


Eileen Goldspiel 

Assistant Director, 

Government and Media Relations 
American Association of Museums 
Washington, DC 

Martin Gomez 

President & CEO 
Urban Libraries Council 
Evanston, IL 

Deborah Gonzalez 

Executive Director, 

Learning & Teaching 
Puget Sound Educational 
Service District 
Burien, WA 

Richard Grobschmidt 

Assistant State Superintendent 
Wisconsin Department of Public 
Instruction Division for Libraries, 
Technology & Community Learning 
Madison, Wl 

Eugene Hainer 

Director, Library Development Services 
Colorado State Library 
Denver, CO 

Adrian K. Haugabrook 

Executive Director 
Citizen Schools University 
Citizen Schools 
Boston, MA 

Jane Heiser 

Associate Deputy Director, 

State Programs 

Office of Library Services 

IMLS 

Washington, DC 







Debra Kachel 

Department Chairperson, 

Library Media Services 
Ephrata Senior High School 
Ephrata, PA 

David M. Kahn 

Executive Director 

The Connecticut Historical Society 

Hartford, CT 

Mary Estelle Kennelly 

Associate Deputy Director, Museum Services 
Office of Museum Services 
I MLS 

Washington, DC 

R. David Lankes 

Executive Director 
Information Institute of Syracuse 
Syracuse University 
Syracuse, NY 

Benjamin Lorch 

Managing Director 
The Chicago Public Schools 
University of Chicago Internet Project 
Chicago, IL 

Elizabeth Lyons* 

Special Assistant to the Director 
IMLS 

Washington, DC 

Susan Malbin* 

Senior Program Officer, 

Discretionary Programs 
Office of Library Services 
IMLS 

Washington, DC 


R. Maria Marable-Bunch 

Associate Director of Teacher Programs 
The Art Institute of Chicago 
Chicago, IL 

Robert S. Martin 

Director 

IMLS 

Washington, DC 

Suzanne Miller 

Director/State Librarian 
Minnesota State Library Services 
and School Technology 
Roseville, MN 

Carol Mitchell 

21st Century CCLC Program Manager 
Office of Elementary 
and Secondary Education 
United States Department of Education 
Washington, DC 

Karen Motylewski* 

Research Officer 

Office of Research and Technology 
IMLS 

Washington, DC 

Mary Ellen Munley 

MEM and Associates 
Oak Park, IL 

James A. Nelson 

State Librarian & Commissioner 
Kentucky Department 
for Libraries & Archives 
Frankfort, KY 


Stephanie Norby 

Director 

Smithsonian Center for Education 
and Museum Studies 
Smithsonian Institution 
Washington, DC 

Sylvia K. Norton 

School Library/Technology 

Planning Coordinator 

Maine Department of Education/ 

Maine State Library 
Augusta, ME 

Bonnie Pitman 

Deputy Director 
Dallas Museum of Art 
Dallas, TX 

Joyce Ray 

Associate Deputy Director, Library Services 
IMLS 

Washington, DC 

Janet Rice Elman 

Executive Director 

Association of Children's Museums 

Washington, DC 

Katherine G. Rodi 

Vice-President 

Partnership for 21st Century Skills 
Washington, DC 

Jeff Rudolph 

President & CEO 
California Science Center 
Los Angeles, CA 




APPENDIX — PARTICIPANT ROSTER 


Jill Rullkoetter 

The Kayla Skinner Director of 
Education and Public Programs 
Seattle Art Museum 
Seattle, WA 

Beth Sandore 

Associate University Librarian for 
Information Technology, Planning, 
and Policy 

University of Illinois Libraries 
Urbana, IL 

Diantha D.Schull 

President 

Americans for Libraries Council 
New York, NY 

Gail Schwartz 

Director, Division of High School, 
Postsecondary and Career Education 
United States Department of Education 
Washington, DC 

Marsha Semmel* 

Director for Strategic Partnerships 
IMLS 

Washington, DC 

Rob Semper 

Executive Associate Director 

Exploratorium 

San Francisco, CA 

Cary Sneider 

Vice President for Educator Programs 
Museum of Science, Boston 
Boston, MA 


Greta K. Southard 

Executive Director 
Public Library Association 
Chicago, IL 

Barbara Stein Martin 

Professor 

University of North Texas 

School of Library and Information Sciences 

Denton, TX 

Barbara Stripling 

Director of Libraries and Literacy 
New Visions for Public Schools 
New York, NY 

Abigail Swetz* 

Program Specialist 

Office of Strategic Partnerships 

IMLS 

Washington, DC 

Richard Tagle 

Chief of Staff 

Public Education Network 

Washington, DC 

Sonnet Takahisa 

Consultant, Arts and Cultural Partnerships 
New Visions for Public Schools 
New York, NY 

Jeannette Thomas* 

Program Officer, 

Museum Assessment Program 
Office of Museum Services 
IMLS 

Washington, DC 


31 


Kathy Turner 

Media Specialist 

and Building Technology Coordinator 
Urie Elementary School 
Mountain View, WY 

David A. Ucko 

Head, Science Literacy Section 
National Science Foundation 
Arlington, VA 

Bonnie VanDorn 

Executive Director 

Association of Science-Technology Centers 
Washington, DC 

Donna Vliet 

Director 

ACCESS to Learning, Inc. 

Austin, TX 

Julie A. Walker 

Executive Director 
American Association of School 
Librarians/Young Adult Library 
Services Association 
Chicago, IL 

Ahmad Ward 

Director of Education 
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute 
Birmingham, AL 

Susy Watts 

Director, Curriculum and Assessments 
Arts Impact 
Tumwater, WA 


Nancy Weiss 

General Counsel 
IMLS 

Washington, DC 

Lou Wetherbee 

Principal 

Lou Wetherbee and Associates, LLC 
Dallas, TX 

Sarah Whitesell 

Associate Chief, Office of Strategic 
Planning and Policy Analysis 
Federal Communications Commission 
Washington, DC 

Cheryl Scott Williams 

Vice President, Education 
Corporation for Public Broadcasting 
Washington, DC 

Dennie Palmer Wolf 

Director, Opportunity & Accountability 
Annenberg Institute for School Reform 
Brown University 
Providence, Rl 

Nicole Yohalem 

Program Director 

The Forum for Youth Investment 

Washington, DC 


* 


Members of the IMLS Steering Committee 






APPENDIX — SELECTED RESOURCES 


Education 

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 
Education Evaluation Report. Washington, 
DC: American Institute for Research, 2004. 
www.gatesfoundation.org/NR/downloads/ed 
/researchevaluation/Yr3SynthesisReport.pdf 

Business-Higher Education Forum; 

A Partnership of American Council on 
Education and the National Alliance of 
Business. Building a Nation of Learners. 
www.bhef.com 

U.S. Department of Education. 

Preparing America's Future; The Secretary 
of Education's High School Initiative. 
www.ed.gov/highschool 

The Secretary of Education's Math 
Science Initiative. 

www.ed.gov/rschstat/research/progs/maths 

cience/index.html 

Gateway to Educational Materials. 
www.thegateway.org 

Tools for Student Success 

www.ed.gov/parents/academic/help/tools- 

for-success/index.html 

Harvard Family Research Project. 

Family Involvement Resources. 

www. gse.harvard.edu/h frp/projects/fin e/fm 

eresources.html 


Murname, Richard and Frank Levy. 
Preparing Students to Thrive in 21st 
Century America: The Role for After- 
School. Reimagining After-School; 

A Symposium on Learning and Leading 
in the 21st Century, April 2004. 
www.imls.gov/pubs/chartingthelandscape/ 
murnane.pdf 

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. 

The Road to 21st Century Learning: 
Partnership for 21st Century Skills. 
Washington, DC: Partnership for 21st 
Century Learning, 2004. 
www.21stcenturyskills.org/downloads/P21_ 
Policy_Paper.pdf 

President's Committee on the Arts 
and Humanities and Arts Education 
Partnership. Gaining the Arts Advantage; 
Lessons from School Districts That Value 
Arts Education. Washington: President's 
Committee on the Arts and Humanities, 

1999. www.aep-arts.org/Gaining.html 

Reimagining After-School Symposium 
Summary. Citizen Schools, April 2004. 
www.imls.gov/pubs/chartingthelandscape/r 
eimaginingafterschool.pdf 


Libraries 

American Library Association & American 
Association of School Librarians. Libraries, 
Learning and the Future. Threshold 
Magazine Special Issue. Winter, 2004. 

American Library Association & Association 
of College & Research Libraries Task Force 
on the Educational Roles of Libraries. 
Blueprint for Collaboration. 
www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/whitepapers 
/acrlaaslblueprint.htm 

Colorado Digitization Program. 
www.cdpheritage.org/educator/ 

Hamilton-Pennel, Christine and Eugene 
Hainer. Dick and Jane Go to the Head 
of the Class. School Library Journal, 

April, 2000. 

www.schoollibraryjournal.com/index.asp7la 
yout=articleArchive&articleid=CA 153041 

Hartzell, Gary. ‘Why Should Principals 
Support School Libraries?" ERIC Digests, 
November 2002. 

www.ericfacility.net/databases/ERIC_Digest 

sZed470034.html 

Neuman, Delia. Research in School Library 
Media for the Next Decade: Polishing the 
Diamond. Library Trends, Vol. 51, No.4, 
pp. 503-524. 


32 



APPENDIX — SELECTED RESOURCES 


Online Computer Library Center. OCLC 
Environmental Scan: Pattern Recognition. 
OCLC, 2003. 

Patten, Kathy. A Source for Better Scores? 
The School Library. American Association 
of School Administrators Guest Column, 
January 2003. 

www.aasa.org/publications/sa/2003_01/col 

Patten.htm 

Scholastic Research and Results. 

School Libraries Work! New York: 

Scholastic Library Publishing, 2004. 

www.scholasticlibrary.com/download/slw_0 

4.pdf 

Smith, Mark. California Dreamin’: A Model 
for School-Public Library Cooperation to 
Improve Student Achievement. Public 
Libraries, January/February, 2004. 


Museum 

American Association of Museums. 
Mastering Civic Engagement. Washington, 
DC: American Association of Museums, 
2002. Center for Informal Learning in 
Schools, www.exploratorium.edu/cils. 

Daedalus: Journal of the American 
Academy of Arts and Sciences. Summer 
1999 Special Issue "America's Museums,' 1 
vol. 128. 3. 

Excellence in Practice: Museum Education 
Standards and Principles. Washington, DC: 
American Association of Museums EdCom 
Task Force on Professional Standards, 
2001 . 

www.edcom.org/about/standards.shtml 

Falk, J.H. & Dierking, L.D. (1992) The 
Museum Experience. Washington, DC: 
Whaleback Books. 

Falk, J.H. & Dierking, L.D. (2002) 

Learning Without Limits: How Free-Choice 
Learning is Transforming Education. Walnut 
Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. 

Hein, George E. and Mary Alexander. 
Museum: Places of Learning. Washington, 
DC: American Association of Museums 
Education Committee, 1998. 


Institute of Museum and Library Services. 
True Needs, True Partners; Museums 
and Schools Transforming Education. 
Washington: IMLS, 1996. 
www.imls.gov/pubs/pdf/pubtntb.pdf; 
www.imls.gov/pubs/pdf/m-ssurvey.pdf 

Journal of the Association of Science- 
Technology Centers. "Science Centers 
as Schools: Extending the Mission." 
Washington, DC: ASTC, January/February 
2004. 

Leinhardt, G., Crowley, K. & Knutson, K. 
(Eds.) (2002) Learning Conversations in 
Museums. Mahway, NJ: Erlbaum. 

Leinhardt, G. & Knutson, K. (2004) 
Listening In on Museum Conversations. 
Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. 

Pitman, Bonnie and Ellen Cochran 
Hirzy. New Forums: Art Museums and 
Communities. Washington, DC: American 
Association of Museums, 2004. 

Vliet, Donna. “Museum School 
Partnerships, Educational Resources 
for the New Millennium." Austin, TX: 
Museline, May/June 2000. 


33 


Hirzy, Ellen Cochran, ed. Excellence 
& Equity. Washington, DC: American 
Association of Museums, 1992. 




Other 

Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 
Television Goes To School; The Impact 
of Video on Student Learning in Formal 
Education. Washington, DC: Corporation 
for Public Broadcasting, 2004. 
www.cpb.org/ed/resources/videoclassroom. 
pdf 

Forum Focus. 

“Community Partnerships for Learning: 
Blurring the Lines” 

Lau, Barbara. Public Education Network. 
Strategic Interventions for Community 
Change. Washington, DC: Public Education 
Network, 2004. 

Museums, Libraries, and Archives Council. 
www.mla.gov.uk/index.asp 

Pittman, Karen and Nicole Yohalem, eds. 
New Directions for Youth Development. 
Spring, 2003. 

forumforyouthinvestment.org 


Walker, Chris and Carlos A. Manjarrez. 
Urban Libraries Council. Partnerships 
for Free Choice Learning. 
www.urbanlibraries.org/collaborationspart 
nerships.htm 

Yohalem, Nicole and Karen Pittman. 

Public Libraries as Partners in Youth 
Development; Lessons and Voices from 
the Field. Urban Libraries Council, 2003. 
www.urbanlibraries.org/PLPYDreport_FINA 
L.pdf 


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